Hermitage Note: Doing Violence

Ours is such a fearfully violent age.

We live in a world filled with rage. We live in a time when rage is one of the primary reactions exhibited in the lives of people toward practically everything: toward practically every arising situation, toward practically every idea or concept being imposed by governmental entities, toward practically anyone and everyone who stands in the way of some preferential inordinacy, toward practically anyone or anything that violates preferential ideals … whether they be morally appropriate or purely carnal.

Fear opens the door for many fashions of violence to occur. Not only in the exterior world that surrounds us. Fear opens the door for all manner of violent behavior within our own interior selves – interior violence that continues to mar our blemished image, or to lend itself toward liberating us from the destruction imposed on us by our ancestors in the Garden.

It is reasonably easy to understand how fear drives the unregenerate to rage. It is easy to understand how fear drives the unregenerate to selfishness. The unregenerate are, after all, unredeemed and compromised in their ability to honestly grapple with and subdue their passions … those eight principal evil thoughts that overwhelm, take captive, and ruin souls. Anger is, itself, one of those eight principal evil thoughts outlined by Evagrius.

Evagrius Ponticus, also called Evagrius the Solitary, was a Christian monk and ascetic. He is one of the most influential theologians in the late fourth-century church. Evagrius was well known as a thinker, polished speaker, and gifted writer. He gives names to these eight principal evil thoughts: 1. Gluttony, 2. Lust or Fornication, 3. Avarice or Love of money, 4. Dejection or Sadness, 5. Anger, 6. Despondency or Listlessness, 7. Vainglory, and 8. Pride.

These eight are not problems just for those who give themselves to following Christ by practicing a strict ascetical lifestyle. These are problems that all of us have to reckon with if we are to grow in the grace of Christ as Christians. These represent the playing field where we apply and put into practice every means at our disposal to achieve what Benedictine monks vow and Benedictine Oblates promise in regard to our conversatio morum or conversion of life.

I cannot help but to think about something that Jesus said concerning John the Baptist, to those who physically heard him, and to us listening now who live our lives for Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel.

Jesus said, “Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is the lesser in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.” Saint Matthew 11:11-12

It is pretty obvious, in this age where we find ourselves, that our Christ and his kingdom of heaven are suffering terrible acts of violence against all that is holy. This has been happening since the beginning of the Gospel. Many within the Jewish system opposed the Messiah who came to redeem them. The old Roman empire was certainly opposed to Christ and those who followed him.

Should it surprise us in our day, a time that is so close to Christ’s Parousia and the accompanying Judgment, that Satan with all his fury is attacking the Church from both without and within? We await this last great prophetic event. Maranatha. Come Lord. Be not surprised, nor be dismayed, that evil will continue to abound as the love of many waxes cold. [Saint Matthew 24:12]

Personally, I discover in these dire times some wonderful opportunities.

I see in these times the hand of God orchestrating the movement toward the grand finale that will soon be announced by the frightful ear-piercing sounds of angels trumpeting the return of Christ to bring to completion the plan of God concerning human beings within the scope of created time. And I hear, within the fabric of my being, the voice of Christ calling me to deeper levels of devotion to him and to deeper levels of detachment from the world.

Detachment, like silence, is frightening to people living in this modern world that captures the passions and cultivates within people a perceived need to constantly surround ourselves with and involve ourselves in the chaotic cacophony of the world.

It is here, though, in devotion to Christ and detachment from the world, where we achieve gradual measures of conversatio morum [conversion of life] and personal victory over the interior passions and outward actions incited by the eight principle evil thoughts. It is here, interiorly, in devotion to Christ and detachment from the world, where we wage our principle warfare against the evils that keep us from taking possession of the kingdom of God within us [Saint Luke 17:20-21] so that we can bear it away [Saint Matthew 11:11-12] before the world.

I am reading an old book during this season that precedes Lent. The season is called Septuagesima on the old calendar. The season is not mentioned on the Novus Ordo calendar. Personally, I think the Church is losing out on something because of the way Septuagesima’s emphasis focuses on personal preparation in order to make a good Lent.

The book is THE LAST FOUR THINGS – DEATH, JUDGMENT, HELL and HEAVEN, by Father Martin von Cochem [1625-1712]. Father Cochem was a Capuchin theologian, preacher, and ascetic writer who lived and labored during a time when the Catholic Church was suffering a lot of attacks by the developing fruit of Protestantism.

The book will make a person give serious thought to the way life is lived in the here and now, especially considering the eternal woes to be avoided and the eternal blessings to be gained.